I recently attended a Deep Learning (DL) meetup hosted by Nervana Systems. Deep learning is essentially a technique that allows machines to interpret sensory data. DL attempts to classify unstructured data (e.g. images or speech) by mimicking the way the brain does so with the use of artificial neural networks (ANN).

Deep learning involves training a computer to recognize often complex and abstract patterns by feeding large amounts of data through successive networks of artificial neurons, and refining the way those networks respond to the input.

This article also presents some of the DL challenges and the importance of its integration with other AI technologies.

Properly training an ANN involves processing very large quantities of data. Because of this, most frameworks (see below) utilize GPU hardware acceleration. Most use the NVIDIA CUDA Toolkit.

Each application of DL (e.g. image classification, speech recognition, video parsing, big data, etc.) have their own idiosyncrasies that are the subject of extensive research at many universities. And of course large companies are leveraging machine intelligence for commercial purposes (Siri, Cortana, self-driving cars).